Helen Levitt | N.Y. photographer, 95
Helen Levitt, 95, a giant of 20th-century photography whose scenes of New York street life provide a window into a vanished era, died Sunday in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment.
Helen Levitt, 95, a giant of 20th-century photography whose scenes of New York street life provide a window into a vanished era, died Sunday in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment.
Ms. Levitt was best known for street scenes of children in the 1930s and 1940s. In one photo, three children with masks stand on their stoop before trick-or-treating. In another, four girls on a sidewalk turn to stare at soap bubbles floating in the air (see examples of her work via http://go.philly.com/hlevitt)
She was drawn to neighborhoods such as Spanish Harlem and the Lower East Side, where, in a time before television, people treated the streets as their living room.
She was born in Brooklyn. After dropping out of high school, she taught herself photography while working for a commercial photographer.
As she began to hone her craft, Ms. Levitt struck up acquaintances with celebrated photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans.
- AP